When attempting to construct a visualized depiction of a story (or part of a story), it is of importance to control the timing and synchronization of events. When the events that make up the storyline are properly timed and synchronized, they will blend together to convey the vision of the creator to the audience. In current technology, the timing aspect of storytelling is controlled with the aid of a traditional timeline, i.e. a line representing time and containing time markers to allow for the synchronization of events with respect to time. With a traditional timeline the triggering and duration of events within a story can be controlled precisely because each event is tied to a precise moment on the timeline. For example, event 1 might start at time t=1 minute and end at t=4 minutes, while event 2 starts at t=3 minutes and ends at t=5 minutes. The advantage of the traditional timeline is that it controls the timing of events precisely; each event can be precisely positioned within the timeline to exactly control the flow of a story. However, a disadvantage is that all events are linked to an absolute time and so manipulating linked or causal events becomes more difficult. Causal events are events that have a logical order: for example, if you drop a ball you hear the sound of it hitting the ground only after it falls to the ground; you cannot hear the sound before it is dropped. In a traditional timeline the two events, namely the drop of the ball and the sound of it hitting the ground, are tied to specific moments in time on the timeline. If one event is moved, the other one stays locked to its position in time. As a result, the order may not be logical anymore. For example, the sound of the ball hitting the ground may occur before the drop of the ball. One solution to fix this problem is to move both events at the same time. However, when trying to visualize a story, there may be dozens of causal events making it very difficult to keep track of all the causal events and to move them all.
The traditional timeline is also not a natural way to think about synchronizing events within a story. In the mind of most creators, the synchronization is linked to events, not time. For example, a creator thinks of a character waving goodbye (“wave” event) and then exiting a room (“exit” event). The creators do not think in terms of the “wave” event happening at t=3 seconds and the “exit” event happening at t=6 seconds. Using a traditional timeline may not be conducive to creative thinking.
Therefore, there is a need for a more natural timeline adapted to the way of thinking of creators